By Matt Ellis
On Dec. 1, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $13 million investment to help 17 federal office buildings “lower energy and water utility bills by more than $30 million annually while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 200,000 metric tons,” the department said in a press release.
This is the latest national effort to make buildings more energy efficient. It is estimated buildings account for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. Last fall, DOE announced a national goal to triple the energy efficiency of the buildings sector by 2030, relative to 2020 levels.
“Developing new technologies to create connected communities that more efficiently move energy around is the type of innovation needed to build an affordable and cleaner energy system for the future,” Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said during the department’s announcement.
As building owners and managers know, government regulations and funding mechanisms are competing with the free market to incentivize the real estate industry toward a more net-zero future. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program has led to energy saving solutions in design, construction, operation and maintenance. Buildings with LEED certification are often more attractive to tenants and can hold higher value in the marketplace.
Similarly, the BOMA 360 program, which recognizes buildings for excellence in operations and management – including sustainability – rewards forward-thinking real estate companies. The designation, BOMA says, “helps properties stand out from the crowd” by demonstrating that “a building is outperforming the competition across all areas of operations and management.”
For building service companies like AffinEco, it is increasingly more important to work in step with the buildings as they look to improve operational and energy efficiency—particularly during the pandemic.
“Building managers understand permanent reductions in energy use are good for the environment and for managing costs,” said AffinEco Managing Partner Paul Senecal. He underscored the importance of technology that can help building owners and managers reduce energy use while helping cleaning crews work smarter and more efficiently, especially now that buildings are less than 100% occupied and may only have workers on-site on certain days.
“Anything that tells us where occupants are in the building, so we can stop looking for trashcans to empty and can go directly to areas that have been occupied, helps us work smarter,” Senecal said. “Sensors or other user interfaces help give us a targeted approach, because if there’s no one on a floor that day, we don’t need to send a full crew there and turn on the lights and run the vacuum.”
One example of such technology is Crowd Comfort, a reporting platform where janitors scan a QR code in a building area to indicate they have completed cleaning that area it can also be adapted with a user interface to report where cleaning needs to be performed on a daily basis. The result, according to the company website, is “a real-time feed of every cleaning on every floor [with all] data shared in pre-built dashboards to review cleaning compliance and team performance.”
The Department of Energy’s investment in grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) also demonstrates how technology is enabling buildings to cut costs and pollution. “A grid-interactive efficient building can offer a host of services that cut costs, eliminate waste, and improve grid operations,” the agency said in a press release, offering these examples:
- Efficient lighting and appliances plus a tight building envelope can cut electricity demand across the board.
- Load shedding allows the building to cut demand during peak hours, or as requested by the grid manager.
- Load shifting takes advantage of cheaper or cleaner power by shifting demand from one time of day to another when renewable energy is abundant on the grid.
- Modulating load with batteries and other electronic devices allows the building to maintain grid frequency or control system voltage.
- Generating power, like from rooftop solar, cuts bills, reduces losses on the grid, and reduces the need for more power plants.
AffinEco has a long history of integrating the latest technology into its operations, communications and reporting. Now, with buildings powered by the Internet of Things, AffinEco and other building service providers have access to even more information about how offices and building spaces are being used and how much cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing they need. Such information is critical for reaching optimum efficiency, particularly when there are fluctuations around the level of service building areas need. “Having an interface that gives us that information automatically, means the client doesn’t have to communicate those details to us directly. It makes the flow of communication much smoother,” said Senecal.
Service crews can work more efficiently and reduce energy consumption if they are working on one floor at a time, then shutting the lights and moving on to the next floor. Senecal refers to the practice as “synchronized cleaning,” as opposed to “section cleaning,” where crews are distributed across sections of a building and perform most/all task on a floor.
How a building is serviced will often reflect the building owner’s or manager’s vision for flexibility and commitment to carbon reduction. Facilities that choose AffinEco for their cleaning and maintenance know they are getting a partner that is always looking for opportunities to incorporate sustainability and efficiency into their work.
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